New horse soring penalties are a cause for celebration

OUR VIEW

As the 2013 Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration begins today in Shelbyville, is the show-horse industry entering a new, brighter chapter in its long history?

With guarded optimism, we applaud the announcement by SHOW HIO that it will support new minimum penalties imposed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for soring horses.

SHOW is the organization that show operators hire to inspect horses and punish trainers when signs of animal abuse are found.

Not that this announcement came easily: SHOW and other parties sued USDA last year, claiming that the penalties violate trainers' due-process rights. Earlier this year, a federal judge ruled in favor of USDA, but it wasn't until last week that the plaintiffs decided they will not appeal the judge's ruling. Just in time for the sport's biggest show to go on - with stricter standards that, it is hoped, will not let any animal abuser off the hook.

Similar scenarios have occurred over the years. Evidence of extreme pain and mutilation inflicted on show horses would turn up, panels would investigate, laws would be passed and industry officials would vow strict oversight. Then, little or nothing would be heard, as if the problem were solved. But it wasn't. Those who chose to pursue success in the show ring at any cost to the animals simply waited out the unwanted scrutiny, and then continued soring.

So, it is now we who wait out the assurances and capitulations, until proof of long-term improvement is clear before us. It will take years of vigilance by the USDA, lawmakers, horse industry leaders, veterinary groups and fans of the sport who have had enough of the abuse.

Thanks to the Humane Society of the United States and its courage in exposing what that abuse looks like, people around the world know the danger of taking the show-horse industry for granted, so soon after trainer Jackie McConnell's misdeeds came to light. The shows have to become a hostile environment for abusive trainers, until they change their practices or else get out of the business entirely.

Until then, there will be no forgetting or forgiveness.

Not this time.

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New horse soring penalties are a cause for celebration

With guarded optimism, we applaud the announcement by SHOW HIO that it will support new minimum penalties imposed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for soring horses.s